20-Year Tawny Horizontal Tasting

[Glenn E.]

We had a great evening and the results were both expected yet still surprising. We ended up with 8 tasters and 12 bottles (add Infantado to the list above). Our overall winner was clear, but not by a huge margin. 1-5 were mostly "the usual suspects" but not in the order that you'd usually see them, and there was a surprise visitor on the podium.

I'll write up the results and send them to John for his article.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great evening, and especially to Carl and Phyllis for driving up from Sacramento again! It was also great to meet Maurice and welcome him to his first FTLOP tasting!

[John M.]

Can't wait to see your results but also to hear Carl & Phyllis' thoughts and scores from attending two tastings (and did they bring a corkscrew to both? )

[Andy Velebil]

Can't wait to see your results but also to hear Carl & Phyllis' thoughts and scores from attending two tastings (and did they bring a corkscrew to both? )

And glasses and decanters

[Carl D]

Can't wait to see your results but also to hear Carl & Phyllis' thoughts and scores from attending two tastings (and did they bring a corkscrew to both? )

Well, I'm really glad that we ended up doing both. I think that both of us found that our sense of smell was far more functional in Sammamish than it was in L.A. - due to the higher humidity, lower temperature, and not driving all the way with the AC on drying out our sinuses. The difference in perception of the nose & flavors was remarkable to me. The wine that was my favorite in LA was not included in the WA lineup, but I'm not sure that means much - I suspect that if we repeat the LA lineup at home with clearer heads we'll both come out with different favorites - probably more like the results from WA.

...and while Andy is correct about our having glasses and decanters at both events, we did in fact forget to bring a corkscrew to either - i need to add that to our traveling wine-tasting kit!

[Rob C.]

Notables missing are Dow, Warre, and Warre's Otima

Do Warre still produce a 20yr other than Otima?

[Glenn E.]

Notables missing are Dow, Warre, and Warre's Otima

Do Warre still produce a 20yr other than Otima?

They did for a while, but it's entirely possible that that's changed.

[Carl D]

Notables missing are Dow, Warre, and Warre's Otima

Do Warre still produce a 20yr other than Otima?

They did for a while, but it's entirely possible that that's changed.

In looking for tawnies for this tasting, I found that both are available - don't know if the non-Otima are older bottles though.

[John F. Newman]

where are the results from this tasting? Were they ever posted, I can't locate it.

[Glenn E.]

I think John M. wrote an article for one of the newsletters, but I don't remember which one.

As with the Ruby Reserve Taste-Off, the results were a bit surprising.

[Glenn E.]

For what it's worth, as I recall the Ramos Pinto won our tasting in Sammamish. (Tasting was done blind.) Ferreira, which is normally in the top 3 of people's lists, came in a rather shocking 5th. That's all I can really recall off the top of my head, but I can probably find the full results once I get home.

[Miguel Simoes]

If you could share that would be great.

In my own blind tasting a couple of weeks back I could only spot Ferreira's crazy finish later on.

When it hit, it hit strong, but until then i was feeling v underwhelmed and had I not had the patience I would have rated it fairly low...

All this to say that I am not overly surprised that it didnt fare particularly well in such a large tasting!